Italy has requested a meeting of European foreign ministers on Iraq and is pushing to give Iraq's Kurds military support, the foreign minister said on Monday.

"We are evaluating with our principle European partners more efficient means" of stopping the advance of jihadist militants, Italian foreign minister Federica Mogherini said in a radio interview.

"We're not talking about military intervention but providing support, even of a military sort, to the Kurdish government," she said.

Mogherini said she had written on Sunday to the European Union's Catherine Ashton to ask for a foreign ministers' meeting on "Iraq, Gaza and Libya, three crises which concern Europe directly."

"Several countries are making a move, but the initiative must be European," she said.

France said on Sunday it was looking at supplying arms to Iraq's Kurds to fight against Islamic State jihadists, in liaison with its EU partners.

The United States has conducted three days of jet and drone strikes on jihadists in northern Iraq whose onslaught has displaced 200,000 people since August 3rd, including all the residents of Iraq's largest Christian town, Qaraqosh.